Evidence map›Paper›PMID 30819162›Full record

Trial reportBMC musculoskeletal disorders2019

Prognostic ability of the German version of the STarT Back tool: analysis of 12-month follow-up data from a randomized controlled trial.

Sven Karstens, Katja Krug, Heiner Raspe, Max Wunderlich, Martin Hochheim, Stefanie Joos, Angelika Hüppe

Open access · goldAbstract readPragmatic Clinical TrialRandomized Controlled Trial
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Trial report in BMC musculoskeletal disorders, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
7citing papers in PubMed
1.5field-weighted citation impact, top 19% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

7 citing papers in PubMed, 13 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Trial
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors at 5 institutions in 2 countries.

Sven KarstensDepartment of Computer Science, Therapeutic Sciences, Trier University of applied Science, Trier, Germany. karstens@hochschule-trier.de.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7403-3452
Katja KrugDepartment of General Practice and Health Services Research, University Hospital Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany.
Heiner RaspeInstitute of Social Medicine and Epidemiology, University of Luebeck, Luebeck, Germany.
Max WunderlichCentral Krankenversicherung AG, Cologne, Germany.
Martin HochheimCentral Krankenversicherung AG, Cologne, Germany.
Stefanie JoosDepartment of General Practice, University of Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Germany.
Angelika HüppeInstitute of Social Medicine and Epidemiology, University of Luebeck, Luebeck, Germany.
University of Lübeck · DEVerband der Privaten Krankenversicherung · DEHeidelberg University · DETrier University of Applied Sciences · DEUniversity of Tübingen · DE

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundStratified care is an up-to-date treatment approach suggested for patients with back pain in several guidelines. A comprehensively studied stratification instrument is the STarT Back Tool (SBT). It was developed to stratify patients with back pain into three subgroups, according to their risk of persistent disabling symptoms. The primary aim was to analyse the disability differences in patients with back pain 12 months after inclusion according to the subgroups determined at baseline using the German version of the SBT (STarT-G). Moreover, the potential to improve prognosis for disability by adding further predictor variables, an analysis for differences in pain intensity according to the STarT-Classification, and discriminative ability were investigated.

methodsData from the control group of a randomized controlled trial were analysed. Trial participants were members of a private medical insurance with a minimum age of 18 and indicated as having persistent back pain. Measurements were made for the risk of back pain chronification using the STarT-G, disability (as primary outcome) and back pain intensity with the Chronic Pain Grade Scale (CPGS), health-related quality of life with the SF-12, psychological distress with the Patient Health Questionnaire-4 (PHQ-4) and physical activity. Analysis of variance (ANOVA), multiple linear regression, and area under the curve (AUC) analysis were conducted.

resultsThe mean age of the 294 participants was 53.5 (SD 8.7) years, and 38% were female. The ANOVA for disability and pain showed significant differences (p < 0.01) among the risk groups at 12 months. Post hoc Tukey tests revealed significant differences among all three risk groups for every comparison for both outcomes. AUC for STarT-G's ability to discriminate reference standard 'cases' for chronic pain status at 12 months was 0.79. A prognostic model including the STarT-Classification, the variables global health, and disability at baseline explained 45% of the variance in disability at 12 months.

conclusionsDisability differences in patients with back pain after a period of 12 months are in accordance with the subgroups determined using the STarT-G at baseline. Results should be confirmed in a study developed with the primary aim to investigate those differences.

Indexed as

Disability EvaluationBack PainFemaleFollow-Up StudiesGermanyHumansMaleMiddle AgedPain MeasurementPrognosisRisk FactorsTime FactorsBack painPrimary health carePrognosisPsychometricsQuestionnaireSTarT Back tool

Identifiers

PMID30819162
PMCPMC6393968
OpenAlexW2917825244

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY
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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.